FAST in partnership with Trading Standards, continues to urge businesses to stay safe from software misuse by insisting they monitor their software usage closely. As Trading Standards is becoming more stringent in investigating organisations’ suspected illegal activity, FAST is continuing to reduce illegal software use by educating businesses on software compliance and best practices in IT management.
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FAST welcomes the news that the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) has received Royal Assent

The DEB made the “wash-up” in anticipation of the General Election and the dissolution of Parliament.

The next task of fleshing out the primary legislation through the creation of the necessary codes and procedures can commence.

FAST now looks forward to the challenges of ensuring that this historic piece of legislation is used effectively and efficiently to protect the intellectual property rights of the software industry.

Government intervention, Costs and the issue of Suspension

The Digital Economy Bill continues to be debated as it battles to get through the House of Lords, on its journey to becoming one of the most significant pieces of legislation for the creative industries in recent times.
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The House of Lords debate on the Digital Economy Bill commenced in the House of Lords early this month and several sessions have seen debate. This most essential piece of legislation is welcomed by FAST as presented and the organisation fully supports the efforts by government in this area.
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FAST creates the FLAG Digital Group to focus on the digital legal issues for the software industry going forward.

FLAG is the Federation Against Software Theft’s Legal Advisory Group established shortly after FAST was founded in 1984, and consists of lawyers from many of the UK’s leading Intellectual Property practices. FLAG meets several times a year to receive presentations on pertinent topics and review legal developments affecting the software industry.

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For those who missed it, the Queen has now confirmed that the Digital Economy Bill will be part of the legislative programme for the next parliamentary term. Although she did not mention IP specifically, the associated briefing from the Labour Party makes it clear that the Bill will include the following measures:

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We are pleased to announce that we have posted our latest response to the Digital Britain Report. We believe this to be an excellent opportunity to finally have some movement in an area that is arduous and complex both commercially and legally.

We now eagerly await the proposed legislation for the illicit p2p dilemma and the introduction of an increase in penalty fines for criminal IP offences.

On 14th July the Federation met with the Shadow IP Minister, Adam Afriyie. Adam Afriyie agreed to table two parliamentary questions on our behalf. The first will be a question on representative rights which will ask the Government for a date by which it will respond to the Civil Justice Council’s “Improving Access to Justice through Collective Actions” report, Read the rest of this entry »